Wisconsin recall: Results a blow to Big Labor

Labor unions’ case in Wisconsin was hurt even more when their favored candidate — former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk — lost to Barrett in the primary. Unlike Falk, Barrett wouldn’t commit to vetoing a budget that didn’t restore collective bargaining rights. Barrett did express support for restoring collective bargaining rights through other means, but he kept labor rights at arm’s length during his campaign.

“I think the labor movement probably confused its members a little bit by getting into the primary election, as opposed to just working for whomever won,” Stern said.

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And recent polls showed that restoring collective bargaining wasn’t a winning issue among Wisconsin voters. A Marquette University Law School poll released May 30 showed that most voters preferred limiting collective bargaining rights for public employees. According to the poll, 55 percent favored curbing those rights for most public employees; 41 percent opposed limiting those rights.

Unions plowed at least $10.6 million in the campaign through outside groups, according to Mike McCabe, director of the campaign finance watchdog group Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Republicans have welcomed those investments as wasted cash that can no longer be used to boost Democrats this fall.

But Stern and other labor leaders were quick to downplay the national implications of Barrett’s bruising defeat, noting that Democrats efforts were hampered by a late primary battle and dramatically outspent by out-of-state interests. “If it’s a setback, it’s a setback that doesn’t have the inevitable consequences that people are going to talk about or necessarily spread to other states,” AFL-CIO’s Podhorzer said of a Walker victory.

“I think we have already made a very significant point by showing how much opposition there is to what he’s doing,” he said. And as for governors in other states following suit, “No one wants to go through what Walker has gone through.”

Labor officials also point to a recent victory in Ohio as proof that Wisconsin isn’t a bellwether for the rest of the country. Late last year in the Buckeye State, voters opted to roll back Republican Gov. John Kasich’s bill to curtail collective bargaining rights.

And this spring, the movement galvanized to help boot Blue Dog Democratic Rep. Jason Altmire in a Pennsylvania primary — getting revenge for his vote against the president’s health care law.

But the biggest prize for labor was Walker’s scalp, and his victory throws a wrench into their argument that they’re staging a political comeback.

“Obviously, it’s going to be a bad thing for everybody if [Barrett] loses,” former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) told POLITICO last week after a campaign stop in Wisconsin Rapids, Wis. “I think it would be a sign to people that they can get away with tactics that are entirely inappropriate in our democracy.”

And there's a reason. It isn't that Scott Walker and his minions aren't the Nazi stooges the Democrats portrayed them to be. It's that Big Labor, in its heyday, was instrumental in killing U.S. heavy industry and manufacturing by brainlessly protecting workers who never deserved to get a job in the first place, let alone to get and hold on to a job through thick and thin, which sent the price of U.S.-manufactured goods through the roof, and made this country uncompetitive in foreign markets..It's no huge secret, or it shouldn't be, that the unions protected the jobs of thousands (if not millions) or American workers whose only thought was collecting the weekly paycheck, whose idea of "working" was merely to show up, and little more. I personally dated one woman in Indy who worked at a Chevrolet GM plant (since closed) who drank like a fish and did drugs at every available opportunity, and who each year, thanks to union-negotiated contracts, got herself three months off with pay at some so-called "treatment center." Hell, the stupid ***** actually bragged about it. And of course that kind of ******** was passed off to American consumers in prices for cars that were heinously inflated to cover the employment of "workers" like that who should never have had a job in the first place.

Sure, unions have (and should have) their place. They've done a lot of good, but they've also contributed to the very un-American ideal that people should have a guaranteed income just because they happened to be born. That workers should receive fair pay for their labor is fine. But that workers who are complete ****-ups should receive the same pay isn't fine. Given what the major unions have done, it isn't at all surprising that U.S. manufacturing jobs have gone down the toilet. The only thing left at issue is if they're willing to clean their act up enough to ensure that the public can rely on the idea that a union worker is a good worker, one who got the job because he/she is actually qualified to do it, and because he/she is still on the job because they're actually able to do the damned job, and exhibit the qualities to allow him/her to do it.

Public Employee Unions are pretty much public enemy number one, and voters are starting to understand this. All in all, it's a wonderful night. Now that this foolishness is over we can concentrate on getting rid of the affirmative action "preezy" and getting the country back on track. 'night Barry...

I agree! They point barrel of a gun in EVERY TAXPAYERS' HEAD, every time they demand increase in salary and benefits. I've had it with public sector unions.

To the average American citizen Unions, public or private have a reputation for corruption, laziness and lack of competitiveness in the global economy. Public sector unions seem to exist, just to fleece the taxpayer and impoverish government. Did they not expect there would be blow-back? Welcome to a would be nation of Scott Walkers.

I'm a big supporter of PRIVATE SECTOR LABOR UNION, but I am TOTALLY AGAINST public sector labor unions.

I totally agree, what amazes me is that the public sector Unions and democratic supporters had actually deluded themselves into believing that they were popular, when as this election proved they are viewed as nothing more than leaches that sap the lifeblood from our society

Big Labor is not the big looser. The middle class and the professional employees are the biggest losers. Every benefit that the unions receive also applies to the professional employees. I haven't ever heard the management or the Governor say they will decline their paid vacation and medical benefits well these were benefits that were fought for by the unions.

That wasn’t Newt Gingrich, or Ron Paul, or Ronald Reagan talking. That was George Meany -- the former president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O -- in 1955. Government unions are unremarkable today, but the labor movement once thought the idea absurd.

Public sector unions insist on laws that serve their interests -- at the expense of the common good. The founders of the labor movement viewed unions as a vehicle to get workers more of the profits they help create. Government workers, however, don’t generate profits. They merely negotiate for more tax money. When government unions strike, they strike against taxpayers. F.D.R. considered this “unthinkable and intolerable.”

Government collective bargaining means voters do not have the final say on public policy. Instead their elected representatives must negotiate spending and policy decisions with unions. That is not exactly democratic – a fact that unions once recognized.

George Meany was not alone. Up through the 1950s, unions widely agreed that collective bargaining had no place in government. But starting with Wisconsin in 1959, states began to allow collective bargaining in government. The influx of dues and members quickly changed the union movement’s tune, and collective bargaining in government is now widespread. As a result unions can now insist on laws that serve their interests – at the expense of the common good.

Union contracts make it next to impossible to reward excellent teachers or fire failing ones. Union contracts give government employees gold-plated benefits – at the cost of higher taxes and less spending on other priorities. The alternative to Walker's budget was kicking 200,000 children off Medicaid.

Governor Walker’s plan reasserts voter control over government policy. Voters’ elected representatives should decide how the government spends their taxes. More states should heed the A.F.L.-C.I.O. Executive Council’s 1959 advice: “In terms of accepted collective bargaining procedures, government workers have no right beyond the authority to petition Congress — a right available to every citizen.”

The real clincher I would bet was the fact that state workers thumbed their noses at the majority of the people they worked for, or were supposed to work for. People don't take well to being told how they will provide benefits and how they will give free everything to unions. Its time the employer which in this case is us should have control of the people that work for us. These days more public sector unions only think of them selves and could care less if the bankrupt a state so long as they get their way. I hope illinois is watching closely, the state house still has not fixed the pension mess made by democrats promising all kinds of perks free to retirees in to get votes. Even with the most underfunded pension mess in the country the unions are saying hell no to giving up anything. That is why they must go. People who work for the public should not be in unions.